


Unexpected consequences

by Sweetlit



Category: Heroes (TV)
Genre: Angst, Boys Kissing, Character Study, F/M, Falling In Love, Family Drama, Gay, Gay Sex, Gen, Kissing, Love, M/M, Minor Character Death, Murder, Oral Sex, Other, Unrequited Love, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2019-10-05 02:59:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17316782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweetlit/pseuds/Sweetlit
Summary: When Sylar gets hired for a murder, he never would imagine it would lead to such unexpected consequences---one day.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> alternate S4/AU: after being tricked by Angela Petrelli, Sylar remains with conflicting feelings about who was for a short time his half-brother, Peter.  
> Nathan Petrelli is a presidential candidate, but works secretly against people with Powers, selling them to the enemy.  
> Future Sylar/Peter slash

The church had seemed silent and still when Sylar entered through the main door, making the light of the lit candles quiver. The smell of wax and incense had overwhelmed him for a few seconds, bringing up unhappy memories in his mind.  
He had shaken his head, going to sit in front of the only other person present besides him on the shiny wooden benches.  
"Why did you make me come here?" He asked, annoyed. He didn't like it. He knew how things ended when he even tried to deal with one of Them: he had already been immolated, so to speak, if not even burnt at the stake.  
"I thought you'd be interested. . ." the well-known female voice had answered him, triggering a strange ambivalent response in his bowels.  
"I don't have time for this bullshit. Speak, or I'll leave."  
"Vulgar and unnecessarily aggressive. I'm here to make you a proposal that I'm sure you won't reject."  
"Which one?" Sylar couldn't help but take the bait at that point, intrigued. There had to be the catch somewhere, he was sure, but if she had come to ask for his help, she had to be as desperate as he was.  
"The possibility of freeing those like us. . . to erase the danger by eradicating it from the root."  
"The danger. . . is Nathan. If he continues like this and really becomes President, all special people will cease to exist. He's gonna lock us up in concentration camps. . . or worse."  
"Exactly."  
Sylar had raised an eyebrow, turning for the first time to look at his interlocutor in the face: "Fine, then. Let's hear it."  
"I can get you to Nathan. The rest. . . is up to you."  
"Are you asking me to KILL him?"  
"You know full well that he needs to be eliminated. He won't change his mind, and he'll betray us all."  
The watchmaker was speechless. It didn't surprise him that much, there was no limit to human pettiness after all, but tonight it was reaching new standards.  
"You're not serious. . ."  
"Why? Because of WHO I am? Yet you know me, Gabriel. . . better than most. So you have to believe me when I tell you that Nathan is going to be the end of us unless we stop him now."  
"Fuck. . ." Sylar bit his tongue, mentally scourging himself for cursing in church. "You're quite incredible, hiring a killer at an altar, and to killing who?"  
" I take you accept, then."  
The man had remained silent for a few minutes, turning his back to her. He didn't care at all about Nathan Petrelli, but wasn't she right? Wasn't the man collaborating with the enemy, selling the special people for a meager gain, to feel what, 'normal'? In line with all the other ants in the den. . .  
Then why would a goddamn woodworm nip at the back of his mind?  
"And PETER? What would he say?" He had murmured, his hands clenched so tight that his fingers had creaked dangerously.  
This time the woman had hesitated before answering, dryly: "He must never know."  
And here was the inevitable downside.  
"So, are you in?"  
Sylar had looked at the statues of the Saints in the niches, the frescoes on the walls and the dying Christ on the cross, in agony. Plots, lies. . . more blood spilled on his hands, even if for the common good. No, Peter should never have known, not so much for him, who was he after all, but his Nemesis? He probably wouldn't have been surprised. . . but had he known about HER. . .  
"I'm in." He nodded, feeling an unpleasant sensation at the bottom of his stomach. "You know where to find me for the details."  
"Good night, Gabriel."

 

Three weeks later, Sylar had entered Nathan's office in disguise, waiting to be alone with him before revealing himself and opening his skull in two like a watermelon.  
He had always wanted to fly, after all, ever since he was a child. . . he had stared at Petrelli's now empty eyes, still feeling the discomfort fidgeting at the bottom of his bowels. He had never felt that way, something about that death disturbed him deeply. . .  
Steps echoed in the corridor behind him, and he had rushed to assume the guise of a woman who had been dead for a long time, to flee.  
The secretary had smiled at him unaware as he walked through the door and slipped into the elevator: Elle Bishop's uncertain smile had greeted him from the mirrored walls as he studied his reflected image with anxiety.  
That wasn't true, there had been another time where he'd had a similar feeling, and it had been on the beach where he had killed the girl whose shape he had just taken.  
He had sent a message with a disposable mobile phone to his client, turning a corner and hopping on the nearest roof: his task was over, yet he felt he had made a terrible mistake, a mistake that sooner or later would return to ask him for the bill, when he would have least expected it.


	2. Chapter 2

Two years later.

\-------------------------------------------

"Two hours since we got stuck, and how far have we gotten?"  
"It's rush hour. . . if we're lucky, we'll be home for dinner." Hesam smiled at him from the driver's seat, drinking a sip of coffee from his paper cup.  
Peter shook his head, yawning: he had just come back from a very long shift, and was looking forward to taking a shower and tuck into bed.  
"Hm. . . what's a dinner, anyway?"  
"Yeah, I haven't had a real meal in months, too. . . how about grabbing some pizza when we take off?"  
"Do you call that a REAL meal?" The empath joked, his expression changing when the radio on the dashboard of their vehicle suddenly cracked. "Looks like there's been an accident a few miles from here. Man on the ground and a child injured."  
"That explains the traffic jam. . . hold on tight, we're rolling." Hesam activated the siren and began to open a way in the river of stationary cars.  
When they reached the crash scene, Peter saw a car turned completely upside down in flames against the guard rail, and a famiy van crumpled up and pushed into the opposite lane.  
"Holy shit. . ." he heard Hesam exhale to his left: from the catastrophe it seemed that the vehicles had been lifted into the air and then crashed down by a huge sadistic child.  
"Let's go." Peter exited the ambulance even before it came to a halt, instrumentation under his arm, ready to get into action.  
A man laid half crushed under his upturned car, his eyes barred open to the autumn sky, evidently already dead. Too late.   
"Fuck. . ." the paramedic turned around, noticing a woman holding in her arms a child barely in her teens. "Hesam!" He pointed them out, running in their direction. "I'm a paramedic, it's all right. What happened?"  
The brunette stared at him, confused, and Peter had to shake her hard a couple of times to get an answer:  
"We were... on our way home. That car. . . came out of nowhere. . . as if. . ."  
"Ok." The empath set to work, carefully touching the little girl, unconscious. "She isn't breathing." He exchanged an eloquent glance with Hesam, who placed the defibrillator on the ground, ready to use it. "No heartbeat. Let's move."  
They had proceeded with the resuscitation and the plates, for several attempts.  
"She's unresponsive. . . Peter?"  
"I know, damn it! Try again!"  
"I. . ." a huge commotion exploded behind them: the burning car had just blown up.  
Peter looked at Hesam in the fraction of a second when he was distracted, and placed his hand on the girl's breastbone. He unleashed a strong wave of his current power, causing the asphalt beneath them to tremble.  
The girl coughed, shaking her head just as his colleague turned back in their direction.  
"What the. . . ? It worked!"  
"Yes. Are you all right? Do you know where you are?" The former nurse focused on the blue pair of eyes that were now staring at him, surprised.  
"Rose!" The child's mother burst into tears, hugging first her, then her rescuers too. "Thank you! Thank you."  
"Another day for the superheroes team. . ." Hesam joked, patting Peter on the back, while collecting the tools to return to the ambulance. "Hey, what's that. . . ?"  
Peter stood up, following the course of his gaze: it was not the accident that caused the traffic jam, but something further on, he could see the police beacons in the distance.  
"I don't know, seems like there. . . oh, my God. . . it can't be!" He murmured, feeling like the ground was suddenly missing from under his feet.   
It wasn't something that was blocking the road.  
It was SOMEONE.


	3. Chapter 3

Sylar was sitting at the bar counter, a baseball cap dropped low on his dark eyes.  
He was staring into the void, frowning, thinking about how everything he had done for Angela Petrelli had been completely useless: killing Nathan brought nothing positive really, because in the end all it had caused had been a chain of negative events for special people like himself.  
For some years now, in fact, Claire Bennett had begun to work with the police and the State to flush out all people with powers and hand them over to the Department, thus denying her own true nature.  
It was typical: as often happened, a Petrelli had managed to fool him even after death, and now another one had taken his place.  
'I've been a complete moron.' He'd thought, while scowling into his drink for the hundredth time.  
He'd made a pretty good deal by agreeing to murder Nathan. . . after Claire had learnt of his departure, she'd lost her mind and her thirst for revenge eventually had led her to cooperate with the enemy, just like her biological father had previously done: now, because of it, all people with powers had to live with subterfuge.  
In fact, Claire had turned into the new threat that had to be erased from the face of the Planet, but this was certainly not going to be Sylar's problem, engaged as he was to hide as one of United States' most wanted.  
Even now, in the bar, he was looking over his shoulders, scanning the place with his telepathy: They had already tried several times to capture him, but he had always managed to escape.  
Additionally, there was PETER.   
Peter too, thanks to the treason of the former cheerleader, had abandoned his aspirations as a Hero and led an almost monotonous life as a paramedic, but apart from this, Sylar knew nothing more. . . after what he'd done to Nathan, he'd kept away from him.  
He'd caught on a different line of thinking with his perusing: something was wrong.  
He had looked quickly to his left, and recognized the undercover agent who, sitting two tables beside him, was obviously keeping an eye on his actions; an anonymous boy who would have easily gone unnoticed if not for the revealing course of his thoughts.  
"If They think They can catch me, They're quite wrong."  
He had waited for his moment, sure They would soon make the first move, and when the boy had stood up to pretend to pay the bill, two other undercover cops had walked into the bar, behind him.  
Sylar was ready: not even a second later, the agents had sprinted into action, unleashing the guns in his direction, but he had been faster.  
The youngest policeman had been thrown against the wall on the other side of the room, whilst the other two had been crushed to the ground with a table above their heads.  
It had taken no more than a handful of seconds, so little that the manager of the restaurant and the people sitting around them had not been able to register what had happened, that the watchmaker had already escaped, breaking through the shop window.  
However, he must have underestimated them, because as soon as he got out three large cars had blocked his path: more agents had appeared, pointing their guns at him.  
'Brava, Claire' Sylar had snickered in his mind.  
She'd finally managed to track him down, apparently.  
He had prepared himself, considering the situation carefully: there were three cars visible in front of him, but there had to be at least two more hidden somewhere in the adjacent streets, therefore he kept his back turned towards the palace for protection, assessing the exact number of enemies to act accordingly.  
If he didn't want to get imprisoned, he'd have to cause quite a mess.  
"Gabriel Gray, put your hands up, surrender!" A megaphone voice had spelled in front of him. "You've been surrounded, you can't go anywhere."  
"Anywhere." Repeated Sylar in his head.  
Interesting.  
They could have evaluated his possible ways out thanks to Claire, but they certainly couldn't have evaluated HIM.  
"And if I refuse, what will you do?" He'd asked ironically, looking at the Chief right in the face.  
"Shoot you if necessary. Surrender!"  
Sylar had sneered with a shrug: if they wanted to complicate the day, he would have satisfied them.  
"All right" he'd responded, concentrating and disarming at the same time all the weapons that he'd been counting in his mind.  
A forest of cartridges had rained to the ground in a deafening metallic noise: the agents were temporarily stunned, not knowing how to react, and there he had seized his opportunity, lifting several parked vehicles in the air, and then dropping them with a violent crash to the ground.  
Car parts had flown everywhere, as he'd turned and escaped, but two streets later he'd been sacked by the additional vehicles that had been in fact hiding nearby, and that had avoided his previous breakaway scene.  
"You can't escape, Gabriel." A voice different from the previous one had said. "You're under fire."  
'Under fire. . . do they have snipers?'  
"Put your hands up and give yourself to us."  
Sylar had obeyed, raising his arms to the sky and looking straight at his new interlocutor.  
"You think I'm scared of you?" He'd mockingly asked. "Think you can threaten me in front of at least a hundred of innocent bystanders?";  
"Don't make any rash decision. This time, we won't let you get away."  
"Really?" Sylar had said, suspending upwards in mid-air about thirty people who had stopped to watch the scene, astonished. "I may not stand a chance, but if you try to arrest me, neither will they."  
\--------------------------------  
Peter had rushed through the crowd that had formed around the scene, looking astounded at the people being levitated in the air, and instantly understood that the cause could only be. . . SYLAR.  
"Fuck. . ." he had murmured, taking a quick look at Hesam, leaving him behind to get more and more into the middle of the mass.  
He had to do something.


	4. Chapter 4

Sylar had kept his gaze fixed to that of the policeman in front of him, preparing himself to do whatever it took to ensure his escape, when a well-known voice that he had not heard for some time had called his name from the front rows of onlookers:  
"Sylar! Don't!"  
The watchmaker had looked at the apparition with his mouth wide open, having difficulty recognizing him: it had been years since they had met because Peter, like many others, had had to give up utilizing his power in public, or at least had to limit himself to using it in the safest way, and now he was standing in front of him as the manifestation of a ghost dressed as a paramedic.  
"Don't do it!" The empathetic had repeated, coming forward. "Take me instead."  
"There's no room for heroes here, Peter, stay out of this." The killer had thrown an unnerved glance around, uncomfortable with the situation.  
"No"; The other one denied, stubborn as per usual. "Let's talk."  
"Talk about what, how your niece sold us one by one to the Department?! Don't make me laugh. . ."  
"I understand, Sylar, believe me. But these people have nothing to do with it, just let them go."  
"Hm, and do the cops here know who you REALLY are? Or do they think you're just a NURSE?"  
"I. . ." the empath had stammered, evidently caught red handed.  
"Gabriel Gray, this is our last warning."  
Sylar had shaken his head, still placing the people safely back on the sidewalk: freeing the hostages was not the wisest option in that circumstance, but he felt the need to continue the exchange with Peter, so he turned his attention to him, grabbing him telekinetically by the throat and dragging him out of the rest of the crowd.  
"What do you think you're doing? Trying to stop me in front of all these people? They'd arrest you, too, you know." He loosened the grip on his neck to let him answer.  
"I just wanted to stop you from causing another Red Hook."  
Shit.   
Sylar had crossed his gaze, and the feeling of uneasiness he had experienced that cursed day had once again gripped his stomach: it was no mystery that instead of hiding in a sure anonymity like most of the Special people, he had continued to persevere in openly using his abilities, but this choice had led him to abandon the path of redemption to return to the old ways, leaving behind him a trail of corpses in addition to that of Nathan.  
"I didn't want it to end this way." Fuck it, he'd never wanted anything that'd happened in the last few years!  
"I know." Peter had thrown him off his toes in a completely neutral tone of voice. "Neither did I."  
'What the fuck is this supposed to mean?' Sylar had searched his face, looking for answers.  
"Gabriel, let that civilian go and there won't be any consequences."  
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" The watchmaker had roared in the direction of the sirens, frustrated. "I can't think with all this damn noise!"  
"Sylar, listen to me. Claire really believed that revealing our powers would free us. . . that a new world would open up for people with abilities."  
The killer had remained silent, dividing his attention between Peter and the agents who surrounded him  
"She could have never foreseen that the government would isolate and put a reward on our heads or that her own father. . ."  
"That your BROTHER would be the primary cause of our demise?"  
Peter's face had clearly darkened, but he had nodded, despite himself.  
"It's not her fault, Sylar, Nathan's death had her. . . has changed us all."  
"Do you really believe this?"It was all that Sylar was interested in at that precise moment, in the midst of that delirium of sirens and screaming people.  
The empath had looked at him, and something in his expression had convinced the watchmaker to lower his guard.  
"I think we both have a lot to talk about." He had made one of his asymmetrical smiles, looking for confirmation in his eyes.  
Sylar had shaken his head in the affirmative, taking a step in his direction, an only, single step, when a strong gunshot had echoed in the forest of skyscrapers and something had hit him in the back of the head, causing him to drop face down on the asphalt, senseless.   
\-----------------------------------  
Peter had stood immobile for half a second (Sylar's head had literally exploded in front of him, splashing blood and brain matter all around), before the same bullet that had hit the watchmaker also hit him right in the chest, making him rebound backwards on the hood of a parked car.  
Breathless, he had fixed the spring sky above the buildings, the shock of the wound slowly taking possession of his body: he definitely had a collapsed lung and the beginning of a strong hemorrhage, hadn't he done something soon, he would undoubtedly have died in mere minutes.  
He had slipped off the bonnet, landing on the hard concrete below, looking confusedly around him.  
"Man down!" Several figures in uniform were screaming, trying to contain the general panic of the bystanders, but no one was running in his direction to actually help him.  
He had seen the blood spilling in a pool under his body, and had realized that none would've reached in due time: he should have made do, but the problem was that the healing power he possessed at the moment only worked outside of his person.  
There was only one way, and that way was SYLAR.  
He had crawled in his direction, trying to reach him, extending his arm towards him, if only he could. . . if only he could TOUCH him. . .  
\-----------------------------------  
Claire arrived at the scene of the disaster a few moments after the rooftop sniper of the Department had exploded the shot, happy to have finally managed to capture Sylar.  
She had so many questions to ask him, so much anger and frustration to vent, but when she saw who was the civilian involved in the shooting she felt like her blood had ran cold: Peter, there was Peter lying helpless on the ground!  
"Oh my God" she had exhaled, quitting listening to the subordinates who were updating her on the situation. "What are you all doing?! Somebody help that man now!"  
"Unfortunately, he got caught in the line of fire. . . the sniper said that judging by his movements, the objective was about to perform an offensive action, so he opened fire to limit the damage."  
"Limit the damage! You shot an innocent person!"  
"It was a calculated risk, Miss, we couldn't..."  
"I don't care! We have to help him now! Let me go, I can. . ." she had struggled to reach his uncle, but every men around her had held her back by force.  
"Miss Bennett, please, you can't expose yourself to such a risk, the target hasn't been secured yet!"  
"Fuck security! Let go of me, you don't understand! I can help him!"  
"It's too late. . . he's dead."  
Claire had looked at the agents without understanding, then had glanced at Peter, a few steps away from Sylar's body, a hand stretched out desperately in the direction of the serial killer, completely motionless.  
It was too late.


	5. Chapter 5

His mother was reading him a passage from a book, the Bible, probably, he was not entirely sure, since he was too busy staring at the still young features of her face, smelling her classic scent of lavender and listening to the familiar sound of her voice, which, despite the infinite powers he possessed, he was always afraid to forget.   
"Gabriel?" She had called him, but he could not answer: a force was dragging him away from her, lifting him upwards, towards a blinding light and a deafening traffic noise and confusion.   
Sylar had reopened his eyes, suddenly finding himself spread face down on the hard concrete, his ears buzzing loud enough to make him take his head in his hands and assume a foetal position for a few moments before trying to stand up.   
A stabbing pain split his skull in two and his sight was half blurred, so much that it took him a few minutes to be able to orient himself and understand what the hell had happened: bent on his knees, he had spat blood, brain matter and what seemed to be fragments of a bullet.   
Somebody shot him.   
Confused, he looked around while finally his healing power put his cranium back together: a sea of people and policemen stared at him terrified in an unnatural silence, broken only by the female screams of a desperate woman.   
Sylar had instinctively looked for her and had seen Claire Petrelli prostrate on the asphalt with her hands convulsely pulling blond locks of hair.   
He had followed the confused line of her thoughts, turning until he noticed Peter's helpless body a few steps from him.   
"NOOOOOOO!" He had screamed, even before realizing it, while fragments of memory quickly returned to their place: there were indeed snipers on the roofs, and they must have hit Peter by mistake.  
He ran by his side, turning him on his back, shaking him several times and trying to feel his heartbeat or a little thought, but there was absolutely nothing.   
It was too late.   
They had killed him, and Claire, who was only a few meters away from him, had not moved a finger to help him.   
Sylar had looked at them, one by one, had noticed their uncertainty, because, in spite of everything, they had certainly not expected that he would survive an explosive bullet without consequences, and had felt a blind fury mounting inside him, so fierce that it made his legs and arms tremble in an uncontrollable way.   
He had stretched out a hand to his left, searching, probing with his mind in search of the first culprit to punish, and when he had found him, he had levitated him in the air from the roof on which he was hiding.   
The sniper had been suspended in front of all bystanders, powerless, panicked.   
"Claire." Sylar called her, spitting the word out like it was poison. "This is on you."   
He had added nothing more, letting go and dropping the sniper into the void: the man had not even had the time to make a sound before ending up crumpled on the roof of a SUV parked under the building.   
The sound of broken bones and metal sheets had resonated gloomily in the still silence, breaking the spell and triggering panic in the crowd that had now formed along the way.   
People had begun to crush and step on each other, causing damage and further injuries, trying unnecessarily to escape the anger of the killer that stood behind them.   
Sylar had then turned his anger towards the agents and the Department: he would eliminate them all, one by one. . .   
A general scream of dismay had resonated in the audience, almost as if other people had been able to read his mind and see the massacre he was about to carry out.   
Another Red Hook.  
"Sylar. . ." a weak voice behind his back called him.   
The watchmaker had instantly recognized him, and had immediately turned in his direction.   
"Peter!" He had exclaimed, aghast: Peter was alive! Pale, aching and with dried blood on half of his face, but he had survived. "But how. . .?"   
"I don't know. The power. . . the power I had. . . couldn't. . ."  
"No." Sylar agreed, knowing what he meant. But unfortunately, he was not the only one: the Department had witnessed the miracle, and the surprise effect, however effective, would not last long.   
He had to help him. He had to save them both.   
"We need to leave now." The watchmaker had told him, approaching him and unleashing with all the force he possessed a giant Elle Bishop's lightening on all the cars around them.   
The shock wave had thrown the curious and policemen back a few meters , Claire included, clearing the field and opening them a way out in a nearby alley.   
"What was that? You didn't. . . ?"  
"No, just stunned them. I don't always succeed, it's not a power that. . . I've never been able to control it perfectly." He had lied: there was no power he could not command, he simply preferred not to use Elle's power because it reminded him of bad memories.   
Peter had not answered, but he must have realized that he was not telling the whole truth, anyway he had followed him, even if still partly shocked.   
Now he was a fugitive too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew! sorry for the delay-crazy time at work and in life...! Hope you'll enjoy ;)

**Author's Note:**

> this work is a translation of my italian fanfiction "Conseguenze inaspettate", please forgive any mistake since English is not my first language!
> 
> hope you enjoyed, please leave a review!


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